


The Other Scottish Play

by Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Broadway Star Angie Martinelli, Gen, Musicals, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4265679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their last encounter, Dottie had every confidence that Peggy Carter would shoot first – probably with an elephant gun – and ask questions later.  Even Red Room training and enhancement wasn’t proof against sufficiently heavy artillery, and Dottie had no desire to find herself on the wrong end of that sort of firefight.  Subtler measures were therefore called for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Scottish Play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sandyk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:**   
>  _Peggy Carter and her entourage belong to the Marvel/Disney collective, and exist as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe._
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  **Notes:** _I totally expect this to be Jossed when the second season of_ Agent Carter _appears, but I couldn’t resist giving Angie’s career the jump-start this story represents. If the amount of tinkering required to retrofit isn't too great, I may revisit this when the time comes; otherwise, it'll work equally well as an AU._

_New York City • mid-February 1947_

By training, Dottie Underwood was the most patient of women. She could remain silent and still for hours on end while studying a target or waiting to spring an ambush. She could project calm and serenity for months, even years, without giving the clueless Americans around her even the slightest hint that she was more than she appeared.

Appearances notwithstanding, however, there was one matter regarding which her patience was sorely tried. As far as Dottie Underwood was concerned, the painful and lingering death of Agent Peggy Carter could not possibly come soon enough.

A purely direct assault, of course, was out of the question. Carter would be prepared for that, and after their last encounter, Dottie had every confidence that the SSR agent would shoot first – probably with an elephant gun – and ask questions later. Even Red Room training and enhancement wasn’t proof against sufficiently heavy artillery, and Dottie had no desire to find herself on the wrong end of that sort of firefight.

Subtler measures were therefore called for. Which was why she had spent the past several months watching Peggy Carter from a safe distance, looking for opportunities. Now, it was also why she had created the much older persona of “Dorothy Frost” and taken a job as property mistress in the Ziegfeld Theatre, where a new musical was about to open in which a certain Angela Martinelli had a modest part.

#

Patience had never been one of Angie’s virtues. She ate dessert first when she could get away with it, fidgeted constantly while waiting for buses and subway trains, and inevitably flipped to the answer page before she was halfway finished with a crossword puzzle. Some things, though, couldn’t be rushed. There were still three weeks left before _Brigadoon_ ’s opening night, and nothing she could do would move up the date.

She was still moderately astonished that she’d landed the job. Howard Stark’s word in the producer’s ear had undoubtedly helped, but there were too many seasoned professionals in this cast and crew for that sort of influence to have done more than open the door. The role of Meg wasn’t all that large, but it was a solid featured part – she had one song all to herself, plus good parts in a couple of others. Musicals hadn’t even been on Angie’s acting radar before Mr. Stark had raised the possibility, but if this show was even half the success its backers were hoping for, a couple of good reviews might be enough to really get her theatrical career off the ground.

Opening night simply couldn’t come quickly enough. Maybe, Angie thought, she could convince Mr. Stark to invent a time machine so she could get there sooner.

#

Peggy Carter liked to think of herself as flexible. She wasn’t above shaking a Christmas package to see how or whether it might rattle, and she strongly preferred to arrive at Macy’s or Bloomingdale’s within the first hour of a good sale. But she would always raise an admonishing finger when she caught Howard Stark skipping to the last chapter of a new Agatha Christie or Ellery Queen mystery. And Steve Rogers had once told Peggy she was the only woman he’d ever take fishing more than once, because she understood the art of being more patient than the fish.

She needed all of that flexibility at present, especially when it came to dealing with Angie. Her roommate’s normal perkiness had blossomed into out-and-out hyperactivity over the last week or so, as rehearsals for _Brigadoon_ kicked into high gear. Angie had done her best to keep from singing constantly when in Peggy’s immediate proximity – “I want you to hear it all properly on opening night,” she’d said. But on discovering that Edwin Jarvis’ skills included those of a first-rate pianist, she had thrust a copy of her sheet music into his hands and dragooned him into supplying accompaniment for several lengthy practice sessions in the household’s music room.

By comparison, affairs at the SSR offices were positively peaceful. There’d been a brief episode involving a (non-working) formula for invisible rubber. And the scheme by a disgruntled scientist to destroy a university building using a flock of trained woodpeckers might actually have worked – or so said the technical staff – except that it would have taken about twenty times as many woodpeckers as there were in all of New England. “Maybe,” Thompson had said earlier in the week, “we’ve actually kicked all the competent evil geniuses out of New York.”

“There’s still Dottie Underwood,” Peggy had replied. “Sooner or later, she’ll pop up again – I can feel it.”

“After all these months? Not likely. If she didn’t crawl away and die, she’s probably back in Russia by now.”

Peggy had simply shaken her head and walked away. Thompson had seen enough to respect Dottie’s abilities, but he simply hadn’t gotten close enough to understand the Russian woman’s sheer tenacity – or the degree to which her conflict with Peggy had become personal.

Time enough, though, to deal with that threat when it actually arose. For the moment, Peggy was content to let Angie have the spotlight, and to anticipate the pleasure of occupying an opening-night box seat at the Ziegfeld.

#

_Ziegfeld Theatre • March 13, 1947_

“Dorothy Frost” bustled about the backstage area, checking the placement of assorted rifles and swords (all sadly non-lethal), straightening various objects on the prop tables, and eyeing the two cabinet-sized fog machines stationed opposite one another, just out of audience view inside the right and left entrances to the main stage. Strictly, the fog generators were under the technical director’s purview rather than hers, but Peggy Clark would be fully occupied in running lights during the performance, and so had been happy to delegate the flipping of the relevant switches to _Brigadoon_ ’s property mistress.

Needless to say, said property mistress hadn’t mentioned the small modification she intended to make to one of the generators, involving the placement of a small additional gas canister inside one of the dry-ice bins. Initially, Dottie had planned to release the very last of Howard Stark’s “midnight oil” gas during the extended chase scene that opened the show’s second act, but after sitting through several full rehearsals, she’d decided that would be too soon. Waiting for the very last scenes, where it seemed that true love was about to triumph, would make a more striking and emotionally devastating statement. Instead of taking their bows in harmonious joy, the cast would tear into one another like rabid animals, ending the musical’s one-night run – and disproving the script’s nonsensically optimistic message – in a wave of mindless, elemental rage.

Best of all, Agent Peggy Carter of the Strategic Scientific Reserve would watch as her best friend succumbed to madness, bloodlust, and a horrific end – and know without a doubt who and what had been responsible.

Beneath her salt-and-pepper wig and pasted-on wrinkles, Dottie Underwood smiled in anticipation.

#

Angie and her scene-partner exchanged pleased if breathless glances as they exited following Angie’s signature song halfway through the first act.  But George Keane’s mind was on something else. “Is it just me, or is Dorothy a little off-kilter tonight?”

“It’s opening night. We’re all a little off-kilter,” Angie retorted. “Offstage, anyhow. At least I’ve got an excuse.”

George grinned at her. “Don’t sell yourself short, girl; I’m nearly as new to musicals as you are. This is _nothing_ like the Shakespeare I was doing before the war.”

“Maybe so, but that still gives you – and most everyone else in this show – lots more experience than I’ve got.”

“True,” George said. “But you just aced that number out front, and that’s what counts. And I still say Dorothy seems kind of – I don’t know, distracted tonight.”

“As long as she keeps everything where it should be,” Angie told him, “I’ll be happy. As for you, don’t you have someplace to be?”

George laughed. “Also true. Look lively!” And he headed for the men’s dressing room to change into the Highland trews he’d need for his next appearance on stage.

Angie herself had a few more minutes – and no costume change – before her own next scene. So she plopped down onto a narrow, ill-cushioned bench just beyond the audience’s view inside the stage entrance, and gave the whole backstage area a quick, sweeping glance. Whatever George might say, he was well-versed in the Broadway work ethic, and if he thought their prop-mistress’s attention was wandering...

...and indeed, when Angie’s gaze lit on Dorothy Frost, she found the spare old woman all by herself, ignoring the bustle of dancers and costumers and stagehands weaving through the main prep space. Instead, she was half-hidden by a curtain not a dozen feet away, one arm thrust elbow-deep into the stage-left fog machine. In itself, that wasn’t odd; Miss Frost would be the one who set the thing running again at the start of the second act. But that was a matter of flipping switches and pouring scoops of dry ice into a hopper, not fussing with the generator’s innards. And when the prop-mistress pulled her arm with its rolled-up sleeve free of the device, Angie blinked, stared more closely – and quickly shifted sideways on the bench, doing her best to disappear into the shadows between the folds of the sound-damping curtain behind her.

To judge by her dry, lined face and mostly silver hair, Miss Frost should have been nearly sixty. But the arm she had just withdrawn was smooth and well-shaped, and clearly belonged to a woman much closer to Angie’s own age. Yet while its skin was youthful, it wasn’t unblemished. There were marks of some kind – scars, maybe, though it was hard to be sure at this distance – at Miss Frost’s left wrist. And then the prop-mistress briskly smoothed the sleeve of her blouse over arm and wrist alike, turned – away from Angie, luckily – and strode off toward backstage left with no indication whatsoever that she’d registered Angie’s presence.

Angie Martinelli’s brain promptly went into overdrive. Given that arm, Miss Frost’s hair was obviously a wig, and her face a masterwork of makeup. Very likely she was also taller than she’d made herself look, were she walking naturally rather than with an older woman’s stooped posture. And if all that were true....

_Ohmygawd, that’s Dottie from the Griffith!_

Angie sucked in a sharp breath. The explanations Peggy had supplied about last year’s cloak-and-dagger excitement had been understandably light on the gorier or more sensitive details, but where Dottie Underwood was concerned, Peggy had been emphatic. “She’s almost as good a fighter as Captain America – only a hell of a lot sneakier, because she makes herself look so harmless. If she has even the slightest idea you’ve seen through her innocent act, she’ll kill you and disappear faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”

Just now, luckily, a quick glance showed Angie that Dottie, in her “Miss Frost” persona, was wholly occupied with the prop swords for the dance number coming up at the first act finale and the male members of the dance ensemble who’d be using them. That gave Angie herself a moment to scoot from one side curtain to the next, so that she stood almost exactly where Dottie had been beside the fog machine. Luckily, the access panel Dottie had opened wasn’t fully latched, so it made no sound when Angie gingerly eased it half-open...

...and then closed again an instant later, because she’d seen what she needed to see. Tucked into a niche next to one of the fans was a small gas canister bearing a Stark Industries logo and a number Angie didn’t bother to memorize. Peggy had tried to skim very lightly over the movie-theater incident in her explanations, but there’d been a loud and extended argument the week they’d moved into the Stark mansion in which Howard and Peggy disagreed over whether there’d originally been twelve or thirteen containers of something called “Midnight Oil” in the cache of Stark inventions that had initially gone missing. Angie figured she’d just answered that question – and that if Dottie managed to mix whatever that was into _Brigadoon_ ’s Highland fog, the results were likely to be very, very grim.

She cocked an ear toward the stage. Judging by the music, there was about a minute left in the ballet number. Mercifully, Angie had been excluded from that one – and she still wasn’t sure how Ms. de Mille had persuaded the writers to let her choreograph a full-on ballet sequence into a story set in the Scottish highlands. Still, it gave her most of David’s and Marion’s next song before she was due onstage for the wedding scene.

Angie took three quick steps away from the fog machine. Then she turned her head toward the prompt desk, caught the stage manager’s eye, and mouthed “Bathroom!” Jules rolled his eyes at her, but held up three fingers and nodded. Angie shrugged, nodded back, and scurried out of the main backstage area. But instead of heading for a toilet, she slipped quickly through a half-hidden door into the front-of-house cloakroom. Scooping up a pencil and a blank coat-check ticket, she scribbled a hurried note and handed it to the startled attendant. “Get this to Peggy Carter in Mr. Stark’s box, _pronto_!”

#

_Prop lady is Dottie! Fog starts Act 2, 13 th can in machine stage left. See Frank in Wardrobe NOW!!!_

Peggy stared at the note for a good four seconds. Then she tapped Edwin Jarvis’ shoulder. The butler – whose wife was at home with a mild but persistent cough – glanced down and scanned the text, then met her gaze with an equally alarmed expression.

Before he could speak, Peggy laid a finger on his lips. “Get to a phone,” she told him softly, quickly writing a number along the bottom of the cloakroom ticket. “Call Jack Thompson and have him bring a full team – but they’re to stay outside and cover the exits. If Dottie gets even the slightest idea she’s been made....”

“And Mr. Stark?” Jarvis gave the barest nod toward his employer, seated at the opposite end of the box with an actress named Audra something.

“Tell him – _after_ you’ve called Jack – but cuff him to his seat if you have to. If he does anything at all that attracts attention, we’re in even more trouble.”

“And then?”

“Sit tight. The only way this ends well is if we take Dottie totally off guard.”

Jarvis frowned. “Are you certain you’ll be safe?”

Peggy grinned sourly at him. “Right now, nobody in this building is safe. But if things do go south, I need you to get Howard and his ladyfriend out as fast as you can.”

“Understood,” Jarvis said, though it was clear from his tone that he was less than happy about it. “Very well then. I believe the expression is ‘break a leg’. In this case, preferably one of Miss Underwood’s.”

As if on cue, the audience broke out in sustained applause. Jarvis’ words had coincided with the final notes of a major musical number, as the show’s leads caroled about “Almost Like Being in Love”. Peggy and Jarvis stood together, joining in the clapping, then slipped quietly through the door at the back of the box.

#

Three and a half minutes later, Peggy Carter had been fitted with a raven-haired wig and decked out in fine faux-Highland style, courtesy of costumer Frank Thompson – who was, as it turned out, a cousin of Jack’s, and had therefore needed far less in the way of explanations than Peggy had feared. “Keep over to stage left through the rest of the act and you should be fine,” he said. “The main action’s mostly at stage right, so Miss Dorothy will be busy on that side. If you have to, you can drift offstage partway through the sword dance.” And with that, he hustled her into place as nearly the entire ensemble – Peggy now included – poured out onto the stage for the final two scenes of _Brigadoon_ ’s first act.

She hadn’t had a chance to actually speak to Angie, whose character was closely grouped with the bride’s attendants all the way across the stage. So she tried as best she could to look as if she belonged among a small horde of Scots clanfolk while the show went on around her. Several of the performers regarded her with puzzled expressions, and one woman actually murmured a none-too-gentle question at her under her breath. Peggy merely shrugged, whispered back “Last-minute emergency,” and kept on milling about. Fortunately, the wedding itself called for no elaborate dancing by the peripheral members of the ensemble, and Peggy was a sufficiently quick study that she easily caught the general character of the more basic choreography.

As Frank had predicted, however, the post-wedding sword dance was a different matter. Besides featuring far more ambitious steps and business, it rapidly rearranged the ensemble into a number of smaller pairings and partnerships, among which Peggy’s solo status threatened to stand out all too clearly. Accordingly, she quick-stepped as neatly as she could around and past the professional players, keeping out of their way to the best of her ability, and tossed off a cheery wave at the woman who’d challenged her as she ducked through the stage-left exit.

Even with nearly the entire cast onstage, the backstage area was still bustling with activity. Stage hands were beginning to arrange scenery for the second act, others were clearing space for props to be collected when the dancers began to exit, and a pair of costume attendants stood ready in case someone needed minor repairs to some part of his or her wardrobe.

Between Angie’s warning and a concise description from Frank Thompson, Peggy had no trouble picking “Dorothy Foster” out of the swarm. Dottie was, fortunately, wholly preoccupied with her prop-wrangling duties across the room at stage right, and took no particular note of the extra Highland lassie turning from side to side at stage left as if she’d never been in the theatre before. Peggy was, of course, scouting the room for the location of the fog machines – which took her several worried moments, until she spotted two cabinet-sized black cubes, each with an enormous fan mounted atop it, half-concealed by black draperies. There was one at each end of the prep area, and Peggy kept a wary eye aimed in Dottie’s direction as she took the half-dozen steps she needed to reach the one closest to her.

Her luck held. The genuine cast and crew were busy enough with their own tasks that no one took notice as Peggy gave the fog generator a quick visual once-over. From what she could tell, only the fan was actually electrified – the bin into which dry ice could be fed was wholly self-contained and required neither power nor complex adjustment. There were, however, two small panels in the side of the cube, one bearing the word CONTROLS and the other unmarked. Peggy frowned and glanced at Dottie, who was now standing just inside the stage-right exit with her attention fixed on the action onstage, evidently ready to collect prop swords when the dancers began filing past her. _Here goes nothing_ , she thought, opening the unmarked panel...

...and holding back a gasp. There had indeed been thirteen canisters of Midnight Oil, and the last one stood silently on a narrow shelf within a few inches of Peggy’s hand. Gingerly, she reached in, carefully grasped the top of the canister, and drew it through the access hatch...

...against which it made a soft _kaching_ as the side of the metal container clinked against the edge of the opening in the black steel cube. In absolute terms, it should have been drowned out by the much louder cacophony of the general backstage bustle. But instead, the bright metallic sound cut across the chatter and clatter of voices and footsteps, drawing attention by its very clarity.

Abruptly, every eye in the room was on Peggy. One man, standing behind a wide lectern-style desk, regarded her with a sharp expression and flipped rapidly through one of several notebooks. One of the costume attendants blinked and said, “Isn’t that Frances’ spare wig?”

And “Dorothy Foster”, aka Dottie Underwood, favored her with a cobra-like smile. “Dear me,” she said, her voice maintaining the frail, silvery quaver of the old woman she presently appeared to be. “It looks as if we’ve caught a saboteur.”

“Nice try, Dottie,” Peggy shot back, tucking the canister under one arm and producing her SSR identification. “That’s a good look for you – or will be in about forty years, assuming you live that long in federal prison. Stand clear,”, she added to the rest of the crew. “This woman is a dangerous Russian spy.” She tucked the badge away again, trading it for the pistol she’d borrowed from Jarvis as they’d left the box.

“Could you possibly take this conversation elsewhere?” the stage manager demanded from behind his lectern. “We have cast incoming in five, four, three—”

Still in pure-as-the-driven-snow mode, Dottie smiled at him. “Of course, Jules,” she said, as a line of performers began darting through the stage-right exit into the prep area...

...and then, with uncanny speed and deftness, she reached sideways and snatched one of the incoming players bodily off her feet, drawing her close and locking a not-so-frail arm around the young woman’s neck. Angie Martinelli sucked in a quick, shocked breath, but made no effort to resist her captor’s grip as she met Peggy’s eyes.

“Then again,” Dottie said in her natural voice, “I think we’ll finish this right here. Peggy, my dear, if you do exactly as I say, I promise you that your friend will survive this evening’s performance entirely unharmed. You might begin by putting down that gun.”

With a sigh, Peggy obeyed. “I don’t suppose it will help to mention that the theatre’s being surrounded as we speak?”

Dottie’s smile didn’t waver. “Child’s play. Now, then. I’m going to count to ten. When I reach six, you’re going to open the valve on that cylinder, and stand there holding it as Miss Martinelli and I walk out of here. If you do not, she dies on the count of seven, and I release the gas myself once I’ve dealt with you.”

Peggy and Angie both gasped, their eyes meeting in mutual alarm. But then Angie gave Peggy a tiny, nearly imperceptible nod. “She’s got us, English,” Angie said, her tone one of utter resignation. “Play it her way and you have a chance to contain the damage.”

“Oh, I do hope not,” said Dottie mildly. “But yes, I admit the possibility. So, Miss Carter – are we agreed?”

Peggy glared at the Russian agent. “I have your word you’ll let Angie go – outside the building, mind.”

“You do. I keep my bargains.”

“You’d better. Oh, and the theatre really will be surrounded.”

Dottie’s smile was feral. “I never doubted it.”

Peggy sighed deeply. “Someday, someone will take you down in a straight-up fight.”

“But it won’t be today,” Dottie replied, “and it won’t be you.”

“I guess not,” Peggy said, sighing again and drawing the Midnight Oil cylinder from under her arm. “Let’s do this.”

Dottie nodded. “One. Two. Three...”

At “four”, she turned toward the passage leading to the theatre’s stage door. At “five”, she took a step toward it, keeping her grip on Angie as she did so.

And at “six”, Dottie Underwood crumpled like a leaf and collapsed into a heap on the floor.

“What the _Hell_?” That was Jules, the stage manager, who was staring at his prop mistress’s prone form as Angie leaped to her feet and raced toward Peggy.

Peggy dodged the attempted hug, gesturing pointedly with the gas canister. “First things first,” she told Jules. “Put her in restraints before she wakes up – and _after_ she wakes up, shoot her if she so much as twitches. Yes, she’s that dangerous. As for you,” she added, turning to Angie, “how the Hell did you do that?”

Angie’s expression was more than a trifle sheepish. “Um, well, I – kinda borrowed your lipstick. I thought I might need it if anyone tried to get too fresh at the cast party.” And she held up a little tube labeled _Sweet Dreams_.

“You _what_?” Peggy stared at her. “Wait, but you didn’t actually—”

“Kiss her? God, no. I bet that wouldn’t have worked anyway, not through all that old-lady makeup. I figured the stuff had to work by skin contact, so I just drew a streak down her arm right after she grabbed me. She was too busy baiting you to notice.”

Peggy waved away Angie’s attempt to hand back the tube. “You,” she said, “are a genius.”

Jules the stage manager took that moment to interject. “She is also,” he said sternly, “a featured actress in a Broadway musical, which is set to resume in,” he pausedto check his pocket-watch, “eleven and one-half minutes. By which time I expect you and your dangerous Russian spy to have vacated these premises.”

Peggy gulped. “On it,” she said. It took only moments to let a handful of Jack Thompson’s men in via the stage door, followed closely by Edwin Jarvis. Five minutes later, both Dottie – just beginning to recover consciousness – and the Midnight Oil had been carried out and deposited in separate cars for delivery into appropriate custody.

“Thank you,” Jules said to Peggy and Jarvis, clearly less than pleased at losing his property mistress. “Now if you’ll kindly remove yourselves—”

Angie glared at him. “First things first. We have almost four whole minutes till cue.” And she caught Peggy in a bone-melting embrace. “I do not _ever_ ,” she whispered into Peggy’s ear, “want to be scared like that again. But as long as you’re around, I think I can learn to cope.”

“You saved both our lives tonight,” Peggy pointed out, just as softly. “Now go out there and knock ‘em dead – metaphorically, I mean.”

Angie giggled and broke the hug. “On it.”

Jules eyed them sternly. “Two minutes.”

“Exiting,” Jarvis replied mildly, “backstage right.” And he took Peggy’s arm as the two of them strode briskly into the side corridor, through a door into the front of the house, and up the two flights of stairs leading to Howard Stark’s box.

#

The second act went off with no further unplanned shenanigans, and the reviews in the next morning’s papers were generally enthusiastic. “The _Post_ said I was scintillating!” Angie said happily over breakfast.

“The _Register_ described you as a bawd,” Jarvis observed.

Angie grinned at him. “And that’s good – that’s what Meg’s supposed to be!”

Peggy, meanwhile, set down the breakfast-room telephone. “Damn,” she said. “Dottie got away from Hosmer and Wells last night – picked the locks on her cuffs and kicked out a car window. Damnit, I _told_ them to search her six ways from Sunday!”

Howard Stark frowned. “What you need is a non-keyed restraint. Say, a magnetic shackle.”

“How would you open something like that once it was secured?” Peggy inquired.

“Good point,” Stark said. “Electromagnetic, then – one charge to seal, another to release.” He picked up a pen and started drawing on his napkin. “There’d have to be a power source....”

“What you need,” Angie put in, “are more women agents. Your guys were probably too polite to search where they should’ve been searching.”

Peggy chuckled. “Are you volunteering? I’ll bet you’d be good at it.”

Angie shook her head, amused. “What, and give up show business?”

Peggy laughed again, but then her expression turned serious. “A lot of what we do _is_ show business – magic, misdirection, disguise. Someone like Dottie could do a lot of good, if only she were on our side.”

“Good? Dottie?” Angie shuddered. “I don’t think I can use those words in the same sentence.”

“Not Dottie specifically,” Peggy agreed. “But we could still use someone with her skill set. Maybe someday....”

Angie shrugged. “You keep right on hoping that – as long as you’re ready next time Dottie Underwood comes calling. Because now she’s gonna have both of us on her list.”

“Touché,” Peggy said. “We’ll manage, somehow. But first, I need one of those blueberry scones.”

# # #

**Author's Note:**

> Except for Pamela Britton, who played Meg Brockie in the real-world premiere of _Brigadoon_ , the portrayal of the production in this story features precisely the cast and crew specified in the [Internet Broadway Database](http://ibdb.com/production.php?id=1534). Technically, I suppose that may qualify this story as Theater RPF, except that I have absolutely no knowledge of any of the relevant historical personalities. I have done my best to give a plausible reconstruction of how the opening night might have gone in the MCU, but the reader should be aware that I'm essentially making the whole thing up as I go along. (Among other things, the 'Net didn't yield up plans for the original Ziegfeld as opposed to the modern movie theater.) Any errors of theatrical procedure or usage are entirely mine.


End file.
